Tab types a tab. To leave the page with the keyboard, press Escape and then Tab, or F6 for the ribbon.
Open an RTF file in three steps
As an RTF viewer it needs nothing installed: open the file and read it. Edit only if you want to; nothing in the file changes until you save.
- Pick the file. Click Open an RTF file… on the empty page, use File → Open (Ctrl+O), or drag the .rtf file from your desktop or Downloads folder onto the page.
- Read or change it. The document appears with its fonts, colors and lists. Scroll to read it, zoom with the slider at the bottom right, or edit it with the ribbon as you would in WordPad.
- Save it. Save (Ctrl+S) writes Rich Text again. In Chrome and Edge, a file opened with File → Open can be saved straight back into itself, and you are warned first if it had parts this editor leaves out; otherwise you get a new copy.
The file is read by your browser on your device. It is not uploaded, so private letters and records stay private, and large files open without waiting for a transfer.
What an RTF file keeps here
RTF files from WordPad, Word, LibreOffice, TextEdit and most apps that export “Rich Text” open as they were written. This is what the reader understands:
| In the file | Here |
|---|---|
| Text in any language, including old code pages and Unicode | Kept |
| Fonts, sizes, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, superscript, subscript | Kept |
| Text color and highlight | Kept |
| Alignment, indents, line and paragraph spacing, tab characters | Kept |
| Bullets and numbered lists, both WordPad’s and Word’s kind | Kept |
| Links | Kept |
| PNG and JPEG pictures | Kept, and can be resized |
| Tables | Shown as lines of tab-separated text |
| WMF and EMF pictures, headers, footers, footnotes, embedded objects | Left out |
Turn RTF into DOCX, PDF or plain text
Every file you open here can be saved in another format from the File menu, which makes the editor a simple RTF converter:
- Word document (.docx) — for sending to someone who works in Word or Google Docs. See the DOCX editor for what Word files keep.
- PDF document (.pdf) — for a file nobody will change, made with the page size and margins from Page setup.
- Plain text (.txt) — the words only, for pasting into a form or a code editor.
- Web page (.html) — one file that opens in any browser.
Going the other way works too: open a .docx or .txt file and choose Rich Text (.rtf) to get a file WordPad, TextEdit and older programs can read.
Only need the file in another format? These converters do it in one step, without the editor: RTF to PDF, RTF to Word, RTF to TXT.
Why RTF is still around
Microsoft first described Rich Text Format in 1987 so that documents could move between word processors. The file is plain text with the formatting written as codes, like \b for bold and \par for a new paragraph, which is why almost every program can read it decades later. In its later Windows versions WordPad saved RTF by default, so many people have folders of .rtf letters, recipes and forms. On Windows 11 version 24H2, which no longer has WordPad, those files need another program; what changed on Windows 11 explains the options. More about the format, and how it compares with DOCX: What is an RTF file?
Questions about RTF files
How do I open an RTF file?
Click Open an RTF file on the empty page above, or File → Open (Ctrl+O, ⌘O on a Mac), and choose the .rtf file. You can also drag the file onto the page. It opens with its fonts, colors, lists and pictures, ready to read or edit. Nothing is installed and the file is not uploaded.
Does Notepad++ open RTF?
Notepad++ opens an RTF file as plain text, so you see the raw codes, such as {\rtf1\ansi and \par, instead of the formatted document. That is useful for inspecting the file, not for reading it. To see the formatting, open the file in a rich-text editor such as this one.
How do I create an RTF file?
Type or paste your text on the page above, format it with the ribbon, then choose File → Save as → Rich Text (.rtf). The file is saved to your device and opens in Word, LibreOffice, Pages, TextEdit and most other word processors.
How can I convert an RTF file to PDF?
Open the RTF file here, then choose File → PDF document (.pdf). Your browser builds the PDF itself, using the page size and margins from Page setup. The same menu saves the document as Word (.docx), plain text (.txt) or a web page (.html). Or skip the editor with the RTF to PDF converter.
Is RTF the same as DOCX?
No. RTF is a plain-text format, first described by Microsoft in 1987, with formatting written as codes, readable by almost every word processor. DOCX is the zipped XML format Word has used by default since 2007 and still develops; RTF has not been updated since version 1.9.1 in 2008, so newer Word features have no RTF form. This editor opens and saves both, so you can turn one into the other.
Why does my RTF file look different here than in Word?
This is a simple editor, as WordPad was. Text, fonts, sizes, colors, alignment, indents, spacing, lists, links and PNG or JPEG pictures are kept. Tables become lines of tab-separated text, and pictures in the old Windows formats WMF and EMF, which browsers cannot show, are left out with a note on the page.